Late Game Ports - Can They be Stopped?
Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2008 9:28 pm
Ports are simply NOT UP. Spain is UPer these days, both in 1v1 and in team. Personally, I think Ports are one of the best 3v3 civs out there. They can fight in colonial with muskets or early goons, FF real fast, boom like mad and once they hit late game, upgraded jinetes flat-out win games. I've been watching high PR 3v3s, and the Port players always pwn. They hit imperial long before their mates, and with long-range jinetes (genitours) they just blast every kind of unit to smithereens. Obviously they slaughter cav, but I have seen games where they stand off at 20 range and waste muskets, too! Skilled players can even beat skirms. After all, with 30% ranged resistance, upgraded jinetes counter their RI counters. And chances are their teammates have units that can solidly smack down large masses of RI (ie, gendarmes for LBs, etc.).
Additionally, jinetes en masse can just go riding through your base and shoot all your vils. Sure, they have a 0.5X v. vils, but when you have 50 jinetes and 51 attack, you don't need to be a math professor to figure out that hitting attack move near a plantation will kill a lot of civilians. Meanwhile, when cav tries to intercept the jinetes, they all get shot, and skirms huffing it at 4 speed just can't even get close to these 7.25 speed bad boys. What's more, a jinete only costs 180 resources... not a bad deal at all with 99-vil monster econ.
So how do you stop jinetes? Not much can, but there is one solid counter. No, it is not the doppelsoldner. True, if doppels can get in there and start hacking, the jinetes are toast, but more often they just hit and run you to death. The better solution (drumroll please) is... THE WAR WAGON! I have recently discovered that war wagons are a devastating late-game German weapon, especially after sending all the OP German cav upgrade cards. War wagons can stand up to jinetes and kill them. You'll lose a few, but with 800 HP in Age 4--and over 1000 in Age 5--they can take a lickin' and keep on tickin'. In Age 4, upgraded war wagons have 18 range (almost as good as a skirm), do BASE 71 ranged damage, with 3X v. cav. That's a fat 213 damage to cav PER SHOT (ouch!). If you have 20 War Wagons, imagine what kind of carnage you'll inflict. So a jinete has 30% RR? So what, you're getting 213 damage per shot. And if you go imperial, you'll do base 94 damage, with 282 damage per shot to cav. Remember, jinetes never have more than 500 HP in imperial. Your war wagons will always beat them in a stand up fight. They train slowly, so the cav training card and mass cav church upgrades are a big help for a spam.
The key is to have a big mass of war wagons, and that is the trick. If you have less than 20, they won't work wonders. So obviously we're talking about maxed-out econs late game. Don't even think about war wagons until mid-industrial AT THE EARLIEST. I usually don't even start using them until uhlans are no longer useful. Generally this happens when the battle settles into a static late-game contest, and I've induced my opponent to invest heavily in anti-cav. In those circumstances, uhlans lose their appeal. But if my opponent goes back to RI in an effort to stop the war wagons, I just go back to uhlans... it is a nice option.
I suppose the big point here is that ranged cav en masse is ideal for huge late game team battles. True, you might run into a Japan lamer with 3 daimyos, the shogun and every Yumi upgrade under the sun, but that's why you have a French teammate!
Additionally, jinetes en masse can just go riding through your base and shoot all your vils. Sure, they have a 0.5X v. vils, but when you have 50 jinetes and 51 attack, you don't need to be a math professor to figure out that hitting attack move near a plantation will kill a lot of civilians. Meanwhile, when cav tries to intercept the jinetes, they all get shot, and skirms huffing it at 4 speed just can't even get close to these 7.25 speed bad boys. What's more, a jinete only costs 180 resources... not a bad deal at all with 99-vil monster econ.
So how do you stop jinetes? Not much can, but there is one solid counter. No, it is not the doppelsoldner. True, if doppels can get in there and start hacking, the jinetes are toast, but more often they just hit and run you to death. The better solution (drumroll please) is... THE WAR WAGON! I have recently discovered that war wagons are a devastating late-game German weapon, especially after sending all the OP German cav upgrade cards. War wagons can stand up to jinetes and kill them. You'll lose a few, but with 800 HP in Age 4--and over 1000 in Age 5--they can take a lickin' and keep on tickin'. In Age 4, upgraded war wagons have 18 range (almost as good as a skirm), do BASE 71 ranged damage, with 3X v. cav. That's a fat 213 damage to cav PER SHOT (ouch!). If you have 20 War Wagons, imagine what kind of carnage you'll inflict. So a jinete has 30% RR? So what, you're getting 213 damage per shot. And if you go imperial, you'll do base 94 damage, with 282 damage per shot to cav. Remember, jinetes never have more than 500 HP in imperial. Your war wagons will always beat them in a stand up fight. They train slowly, so the cav training card and mass cav church upgrades are a big help for a spam.
The key is to have a big mass of war wagons, and that is the trick. If you have less than 20, they won't work wonders. So obviously we're talking about maxed-out econs late game. Don't even think about war wagons until mid-industrial AT THE EARLIEST. I usually don't even start using them until uhlans are no longer useful. Generally this happens when the battle settles into a static late-game contest, and I've induced my opponent to invest heavily in anti-cav. In those circumstances, uhlans lose their appeal. But if my opponent goes back to RI in an effort to stop the war wagons, I just go back to uhlans... it is a nice option.
I suppose the big point here is that ranged cav en masse is ideal for huge late game team battles. True, you might run into a Japan lamer with 3 daimyos, the shogun and every Yumi upgrade under the sun, but that's why you have a French teammate!
